Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)

Of course it's a red herring in many ways, the vocals aren't the music too, thank god, otherwise we'd be talking about the fucking Wondermints. But nonetheless, it's the reference point that's always going to crop up bar some radical revision of their style, and I rather think they've figured out the smartest move of all -- ie, not to care, and to go where their whim takes them.

(Oddly, Alfred's criticism just now makes me think more about how I don't like either the Polyphonic Spree or the Arcade Fire. Not about the curls, though, I like curls.)

This album makes me think about how much I disliked The Soft Bulletin.

I was going to mention Arcade Fire's earnestness (brow beating) as a reason why I like this record's relative understatement.

That Flaming Lips album has cast a very long shadow.

Ronan you really have to hear the Gang Gang Dance album.

I still have to hear that album too, all I know about them is that they were the Boredoms standins in NYC for Boadrum this year.

(Which now that I think about it makes me think that a possible positive role model for MPP would be Vision Creation Newsun -- earlier I was considering vague parallels, ie band established with a certain kind of earlier sound and focus gets to the point where they build up to a monstrously perfect album in a different but related vein that becomes *the* album for a good number of people from that point forward, and which works with electronic elements in a very 'natural' sense, for lack of a better word.)

What I heard of the GGD album was kind of neat tho i'm not sure i could put it in regular rotation.

It doesn't really sound like "massed harmonies" on that track though? I'd heard it more as a single vocal line, maybe a bit of multitracking and reverb, occasional back up vox. As Ronan says,quite understated to me!

Whatever the case, of anything on this record it's one of the least "wall of sound" tracks by miles, again I wonder if the learned idea of this record/band isn't overpowering the actual thing?

and it's far, far away from Flaming Lips/Polyphonic Spree/Arcade Fire territory thank f-ck.

That's an insult to the Lips!

Of course, I think the Lips and Mercury Rev are fundamental components to A.C.'s genome.

it is far away from that stuff in a lot of respects but my complaint about this album is the same as my complaint about the soft bulletin which is that they both "sound" (in the sense of the individual sounds that were chosen to carry the music) unbelievably dull.

The Gang Gang Dance album is amazing also! I've kind of avoided mentioning it in this thread because well... I don't want to get too hyped and/or spin off into extended or unjustified comparisons with this. And I also want to stay well out of bringing more vaguely unnecessary genre comparisons into play or dredge up old ILM indie+dance corpses w/r/t both of these when they stand alone as great records perfectly well without and actually almost transcending such cheap selling points.

i hadn't been really impressed with the gang gang dance stuff i'd heard, but then i heard a track mixed into one of dj/rupture's radio sets and was like "wow, what is this?"

xpost - I was thinking 'bad' lips if that helps :|

again I wonder if the learned idea of this record/band isn't overpowering the actual thing?

Always a struggle for any band trying to do something different, and it's something both band and audience would have to consider -- lord knows the band could have just locked into Elephant 6 whimsy territory and my reaction would be less equivocal and more 'die and rot.'

I think no more than 10 critics should be allowed to hear any given new album in any given year.

i think critics should be allowed to hear no more than 10 albums in any given year

Both of these claims are true.

I think no more than 10 critics should be allowed to hear any given new album in any given year.

How's this not true now?

I listened to the Gang Gang Dance album in the supermarket last week and it didn't instantly grab me. But I will check again. My listening habits are haywire lately compared to my usual, Three Six Mafia, endless gfunk, Miles Davis...David Lynch associated music.

i have heard like two thirds of this band's records, can someone point me out an actual moment which actually SOUNDS LIKE THE BEACH BOYS, not 'like the idea of the beach boys' or 'like they once heard a beach boys record' or 'conveying a similar spirit to the beach boys', i'd appreciate that

i mean darren hayman went on about them too but no one ever suddenly thought hefner's vocals were anything like the wilsonses

thomp, i have no idea what song it was but it's on the new album that was playing at Easy Street. i took my headphones off to see what the fucking racket was and my first thought was, "this shit sounds like the beach boys." When i paid for my purchases i noticed the disc playing was Animal Collective. i have no idea what song was playing but it's on the new disc and my first thought was THIS = BEACH BOYS influenced.

i'm so glad that zip i downloaded was full of Rick Astley. nobody ever accused him of ripping off the beach boys.

i have heard like two thirds of this band's records, can someone point me out an actual moment which actually SOUNDS LIKE THE BEACH BOYS, not 'like the idea of the beach boys' or 'like they once heard a beach boys record' or 'conveying a similar spirit to the beach boys', i'd appreciate that

I hear a faint sonic resemblance, so "conveying a similar spirit to the beach boys" is enough. Also: the fascination with the language and mores of adolescence.

I listened to the Gang Gang Dance album in the supermarket last week and it didn't instantly grab me. But I will check again. My listening habits are haywire lately compared to my usual, Three Six Mafia, endless gfunk, Miles Davis...David Lynch associated music.

― Local Garda, Tuesday, January 13, 2009 3:51 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

join rolling autogoon thred

Xfm are doing an Animal Collectve album playback with interview with 2 members of Animal Collective NOW !

http://www.xfm.co.uk/

Sorry, hype cycle is over now. We're talking about the new Neko Case instead.

Haven't spent much time with this band (was very turned off by vocals previously) but the "Your Love" bit on "My Girls" is GREAT and the vocals aren't bad at all. Good stuff.

I listened to the Gang Gang Dance album in the supermarket

???

maybe on an ipod u retard?

(Which now that I think about it makes me think that a possible positive role model for MPP would be Vision Creation Newsun -- earlier I was considering vague parallels, ie band established with a certain kind of earlier sound and focus gets to the point where they build up to a monstrously perfect album in a different but related vein that becomes *the* album for a good number of people from that point forward, and which works with electronic elements in a very 'natural' sense, for lack of a better word.)

Ned, you literally read my mind here. I've been saying and thinking this exact same thing since I first heard the album.

As for Alfred's comment about "I'm really lost in your curls," this is where I find the Beach Boys comparison apt, in that a line like this is, ostensibly, excessively whimsical, to the point that it inadvertently comes across as odd and creepy. The big exception is that there never feels like a release in any of Brian Wilson's mind games, whereas with this band--at frustration's breaking point--the singer shrieks his brains out. But Beach Boys comparisons end there.

Ned, you literally read my mind here. I've been saying and thinking this exact same thing since I first heard the album.

I'm not alone!

This, along with mentions of The Soft Bulletin and me talking about Loveless, along with a random mention of the Avalanches's Since I Left You, was making me mull over the idea of connecting threads between them all, not entirely in terms of style but certainly in terms of treatment of sound beyond the 'basics,' whatever those are meant to be. Also, emotionally connecting threads -- for lack of a better term (as I said, I was mulling this over), I came up with the phrase 'decentered exultance,' where each of these albums I've mentioned, and many more could be suggested, builds beyond the idea of just being a 'studio creation' or hard to replicate live into some sort of fundamental questioning of the band model as received. This even as most of these acts *did* perform live in a band setup, of course.

Nothing formal about any of this, I'm thinking out loud here -- it might just be more a function of the rhetoric around each of those releases that makes me think of possible connections.

whereas on previous animal collective outings i got the sense that the band struck some of the more thrilling moments by accident with the tendency to circle around and play out ideas in almost ambivalent fashion till songs reached their culminating point, this new record is all very measured and focused, and the frequent astonishing bits seem very pointed and deliberate. i'm really fascinated by Merriweather Post Pavilion and it really surprised me by how direct and immediately enjoyable it was. love it.

maybe on an ipod u retard?

^^^

I've been listening to this album almost non stop for a week now and it's really wonderful (I had never heard anything from them before). it opens up after each listen to reveal great songwriting and arrangement ideas (the much delayed and only once used chorus in "also frightened" for instance or the beautiful harmonies backing the smoothly sung melody in "bluish"... and of course the insane and infectuous african like melodies/harmonies in "brothersport").

The only problem I have with this album is, um, the problem I had with Strawberry Jam. Both feel like they a precursor to something bigger and better. Like, "these are the two albums in which we learn to play our new synths properly and integrate them into what was an indie folk band, and now we present what you've been waiting for..."

well, who cares if the actual result is good !
if the following is even better, i'm all for it.

Yeah, I say that in with good intentions, and for the most part really like MPP.

that said, as I haven't heard any of their previous stuff (just got "person pitch" but haven't listened to it yet). Since I love this one, which album would be worth getting ?

just work your way back

but from what I've heard/read, strawberry jam is pretty different, no ?

It's the most similar to Merriweather of the AC back catalogue.

ok, I'll see that, then.
thanx !

nothing they've done quite sounds like MPP in my view (though as stated above, 'strawberry jam' probably comes the closest.

and in terms of quality, everything prior to MPP except for 'here comes the indian' seems remarkably even in quality to me. so my advice to anybody would be to listen to them all. that said, i rarely make it all the way through the back half of 'sung tongs', whereas 'feels' and 'strawberry jam' have a really logical and enjoyable structure that makes them nice to listen to from beginning to end.

Spirit they've gone:treble heavy Canterbury whimsy folk
Danse Manatee: Like this, more treble, more hiss and noisy elements
Here Comes the Indian:Echoey Boredoms circa Super AE pop music
Campfire Songs: As described
Hollindagain: Inscrutable free folk buried in ambience and tape hiss.
Sung Tongs: Hyper structured free folk with bizarre layered chanting vocals.
Prospect Hummer: rippling arrangements and Vashti Bunyan
Feels: Even More Ripple, keyboards and chanting.
Strawberry Jam: Electronic first go, very compressed sounding, the second half is almost good enough to make up for the first
Water Curses: the bridge between Strawberry Jam and MPP

also, that's a shame, We Tigers and Mouth Wooed her are two of the highlights of ST

The only problem I have with this album is, um, the problem I had with Strawberry Jam. Both feel like they a precursor to something bigger and better. Like, "these are the two albums in which we learn to play our new synths properly and integrate them into what was an indie folk band, and now we present what you've been waiting for..."

― a hoy hoy, Wednesday, January 14, 2009 7:27 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Their first 2 albums (in 2000 and 2001) had tons of synths

I admit I laughed.

pretty ironic that a blog that's basically an internet semen stain can make that joke

It's all a cycle!

a unicycle